3-19-2016

        Good Morning All!!          

          1 John 1:9; “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness”

     I was in a restaurant the other day having lunch.  A couple of men were ahead of me at the cashier spot.  The first guy told the young waitress that he wanted to pay for the lunch of the guy he was with.  It started as the usual back and forth, “no, I’ll pay, you paid last time” but it quickly escalated.  Soon the one man became kind of agitated and began shouting.  He was telling the first man not to pay for his lunch, he was capable of paying for his own lunch, he didn’t need the other man’s help and so on.  The poor waitress didn’t know what to say or do.  The first man was really shocked and at a loss.  The second man paid for his lunch and stormed out of the restaurant.  Everyone else was kind of stunned.

    I have no idea what triggered this man’s response.  I don’t know if he had a really bad day or if the first man was an arrogant guy who was always flaunting his money or what other possible excuse there would be but he refused to allow someone else to pay for his lunch.  It made me really wonder about him but later I wondered about if there are times when we reject God’s payment as well.    

    There are many ways that we reject God’s payment for our sin.  Sometimes we don’t want God to pay for it because we do not see it as a sin, at least not one worth worrying about. Everybody does it or at least it is not as bad as what other people do; at least that is what we tell ourselves.  So we reject God’s forgiveness because we want to keep our sin.  We want to keep a sin that we enjoy or refuse to let go of.  It might be gossip or porn or judging our neighbors.  These corrupt and destroy us from the inside out.  We don’t want these sins to be gone, we would rather keep them.

    The other sin we refuse payment of is the sin that we think is too great to forgive.  We have sins in our past and in our heart that we think are unforgivable.  We think that there is something beyond forgiveness.  Some place abortion, marital unfaithfulness, an event that took someone’s life in the category of “unpayable”.

    The thing these two have in common is a lack of accepting the gift of having them paid for.  Whether by denying sin exists or thinking it is beyond payment, we reject payment.  In both cases, sin is sin, both need to be paid for.  God has sent Jesus to pay for our sins, all our sins; those so great they weigh us down and those we like to keep around.  All sin needs to be paid for and all sin has been paid for.  God will cleanse us from all sin; grab hold of this true to change your life.

Father of all mercy, in you we have hope.  Guide us by your Spirit to confess and repent all our sin and know that they are forgiven.  You, in your love for us, have given us redemption through Jesus.  Keep us safe in your arms and never let us fall.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret